


Entre nous

by Lilliburlero



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comment Fic, Gen, M/M, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:11:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During that infamous lift  back to the hospital, Laurie lets Bunny finish what he was about to say.  </p><p>*</p><p>To tree_and_leaf's prompt, 'Bunny, secretly a virgin.'</p><p>*</p><p>Advisory: possible ableist insult (depending on how you read it).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entre nous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tree_and_leaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree_and_leaf/gifts).



> Prompt not _quite_ honoured, for which apologies.

Laurie said abruptly, 'Well, you can tell me this, then. Why did you do it?'

'Well really, my dear, I was more or less swept off my feet. Between ourselves...'

About to clarify in scornful terms, Laurie found his tongue stayed by a curiosity he did not really care to own.

'...he was my first. And only, just about.'

' _What_? You can't possibly mean that.'

'We didn't all have the benefits of a public school education, you know. Oh, I dare say things did go on behind the bicycle sheds at Stretford Grammar—'

So that was the source of it, the nasal whinge and glottalised consonants under the genteel veneer.

'—but I never cared to partake. Then I took a job at an aircraft works in the Gloucestershire countryside. Not many of the right sort of parties, I can tell you, in Lynchwyck. Anyway, I'm particular. And if I do say so myself, I have the looks to be able to take my pick.'

Ashamed that his first thought had nearly coalesced into _why on earth Ralph, then?_ Laurie snapped, 'I don't want to hear any more of this.'

Bunny stopped the car.

'But actually, dear boy, I think you do.'

He flung his arm across the back of the seat. Laurie flinched, not so much at the prospect of contact as at the realisation that Bunny was perfectly right. 

'Oh, don't jump like that. I'm not going to touch you. Which bit of _particular_ didn't you catch? But I am going to tell you. Because if you're going to take the old dear on—oh, don't make me laugh, a nod's as good as a wink—then there are a few things you should know about him. Yes, he was the first man I—'

Astonishingly, the account was delivered without euphemism: crisp and telegraphic, as Ralph himself might have told it. Mesmerised, Laurie thought no more of silencing him. He knew what Bunny said was true. And seven years of speculation, variously deflected and resisted, occasionally indulged to a shameful apogee, was for the first time supplemented by fact.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~I'm imagining Bunny to be from Manchester.~~ More precisely: Stretford is a town in the Greater Manchester area.


End file.
